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The low point of my holiday to Jordan came early. Driving through the dusty Moab Mountains southwest of the capital, Amman, I spotted a bizarre road sign. It was bright blue with wavy white lines and simply said 'Sea Level'. Now what is the motorist meant to do? Hold their nose? Start praying in a bone dry landscape lifted straight from the pictures in your Sunday school Bible?

It was a good fifteen minutes of further descent before we hit the shores of the Dead Sea, a lifeless salt lake at the lowest point on earth. You might reasonably expect a mood of utter desolation, but no - this is a place of seaside frolics and £1,000 spa treatments lasting five days. In a region accustomed to miracles, it is perhaps no wonder that the Jordanians had the chutzpah to open luxury hotels beside a puddle of super-buoyant brine one remove from disinfectant. The Dead Sea has no surf, no fish, no boats, yet this aquatic ground zero is supremely beneficial. Winters are mild, the landscape restfully minimalist, the air rich with oxygen, the water packed with minerals, and a constant haze dampens all sound.

Just the place, perhaps, to take the long view on the Arab Spring and conflicts in neighbouring Syria. While tourist numbers have inevitably dropped, the Hashemite Kingdom has remained very much open for business, more than 200 years after the rediscovery of its most iconic attraction, the fabulous ancient city of Petra.

The Kempinski Ishtar Dead Sea hotel

Looking out from our five-star home for two nights, the Kempinski Hotel Ishtar Dead Sea, the view doesn't seems to have changed much in 2,000 years. This Babylon-themed sanctuary offers the most pampering, pain-free way to have a Dead Sea dip. Along with a support system of beach shoes, towels, full-length mirrors and showers comes the chance to have a complimentary caking in therapeutic black mud. Mine is applied by Kamal, who tells me he also gave Tony Blair a good slap when he was over here Solving The Middle East Question. Besides making your skin feel wonderful, this hippo moment is a right laugh - and the feel-good fun can be continued in the Ishtar's palatial Anantara spa, one of the largest in the Middle East. Book a treatment – facials, wraps and scrubs using Dead Dead salts and mud are popular – and you can then swan around all day in a vast, adults-only playground with a hammam, hydro pool, heated loungers and serene outdoor pools where we lay back and watched the sun set over Jericho.

As flights from London to Amman arrive in the evening or later, and the Dead Sea is just a 70-minute transfer from Queen Alia airport, its shores make an enjoyable first stop on a tour of southern Jordan. While there are fine things to see in the north too – the Roman ruins of Jerash, the Citadel crowning Amman – the country's great magnet is, of course, Petra. Hidden in the sun-baked mountains east of Wadi Araba, the 'rose-red' capital of the Nabataean Empire, which blossomed here from 312BC to 106, was discovered on 22 August 1812 by a young Swiss explorer, Johann Burckhardt.

It takes around three hours to drive here from the Dead Sea, a scenic journey that climbs up through the dough-like mountains to follow the King's Highway, which Moses tried to use some 3,000 years ago and which is now home to a string of rural settlements trailing south from Amman like ribbons on a kite. By contrast, the scale of Wadi Musa - the service town for Petra - is a surprise. Some 30,000 people live here, with 85 per cent working in tourism. Two years ago the lost city was attracting a record 40,000 tourists a month, and while visitor numbers are down by 15 per cent it's still a crucial source of income.

So what is the best way to see this wonder of the world? Well, don't get too vexed. Petra was once a booming city housing some 30,000 Nabataeans and there is still room for us all - as well as an argument that it looks better sprinkled with people in silly sun-hats. Whether you're part of a flash-flood tour group charging down the Siq (the three-quarter-mile-long narrow gorge that forms its dramatic entrance), or a dinar-strapped backpacker sneaking round the back to avoid the hefty £50 admission fee, you will certainly be astonished. Elaborately Kempinski Hotel Ishtar Dead Sea,as vivid and streaky as smoked salmon, Petra's ornately-decorated tombs, temples and theatre are a fabulous ghost town that turns us all into dreamers and explorers.

If you want the place to yourself, buy a two-day ticket and stay as close to the entrance as possible in order to come and go at whim and avoid the visitor rush-hours. We walked the Siq four times, once at night when the gorge becomes the softly-lit spectacle 'Petra by Candlelight'. This is an enchanting idea marred by its own success, as a thousand fellow tourists converge on the Treasury in a tumultuous frenzy of flash photography and Eurobabble.

For a more meaningful encounter, check into the Mövenpick Resort Petra, which couldn't be closer to the gates and comes with a pool and rooftop terrace that are balm for the weary sightseer. Set your alarm for 5.30am and half-an-hour later you can be the first visitors in, with Petra virtually all to yourself for the next few hours. By 7.30am we had climbed up to the High Place of Sacrifice for sunrise views over the golden mountains, as the first Bedouin arrived for another day of donkey rides and souvenir-selling. But there was no hard sell – instead we were invited into a cave to see some two-week old twins, and by 10am were back at the hotel enjoying a slap-up breakfast.

After all that walking and wondering, it's time for a refreshing splash in the Red Sea. It's only a 90-minute drive south to Aqaba, Jordan's gateway to the world's oceans. Multi-tasking as container port, duty-free zone and holiday resort, it's a friendly place where the call of the muezzin vies with the thumping beat of the party boat and the relentless hammer of the construction worker's drill. Low-flying helicopters and hotel security checks are a reminder that we are sunbathing in a geopolitical pressure point where the frontiers of Jordan, Israel, Eqypt and Saudi Arabia converge. Everywhere you look there is development, and while Aqaba is not the new Dubai it is set to be transformed by multi-billion dollar projects such as Saraya Aqaba and Marsa Zayed, that will bequeath the city a Grand Mosque, 33-storey office tower, luxury hotels and a vibrant new heart drawn, as the billboards say, “from the ethics and values of Abu Dhabi”.

The Kempinski resort in Aqaba has a private beach and a maze of pools

Until that dubious dawn Aqaba will hopefully remain an affably dishevelled seaside escape. After the marvel of Petra, its sights are small beer (non-alcoholic) – a Toytown fort, a sweet archaeological museum, and – goodness – the world's largest unsupported flagpole. Stroll downtown and you can enjoy everything from pungent spice shops and easy-going fish restaurants to cut-price liquor stores. On Fridays the public beaches present an engaging scene of seaside happiness as pedalos take on tankers and glass-bottom boats cruise the reefs. Gleeful children bob in the sea in bright orange inflatable ducks as abaya-clad Mum frets on the shore and dishdasha-ed Dad guards the cooler box and hubbly-bubbly pipe.

The smartest place to stay is Kempinski Hotel Aqaba, which is central but still has a private beach and enjoyable maze of pools. All 200 rooms have seaview balconies and there is a good restaurant, Fish-In, serving mezze dishes like pomegranate tabbouleh (bulgur salad), labneh (yogurt) with basil, and lamb nakanek (sausage). To get some bearings, book the free shuttle bus that makes a half-hour journey south to the Royal Diving Club, close to the Saudi border, where there is rewarding snorkelling from the shore. I'm sure you've heard all the hype about the underwater wonders of the Red Sea – well, believe it all. This water-world is quite fantastic, a cavalcade of brightly-coloured coral and fashion-savvy fish that shows we have not yet completely messed up nature.

For a second viewing, take a boat trip. Boarding Sindbad Discovery for a four-hour coral-viewing cruise things could have been better – some informative commentary, rather than blaring pop music, would have helped. But the barbecued fish served on top deck was delicious, and all was forgiven when we snorkelled at a dive site known as Japanese Garden. As the sunlight beamed down through the warm, super-clear water, I was entranced by a shimmering shoal of silvery fish that danced around me as if I was being escorted to the gates of paradise. A few days ago I'd been bobbing in a salty sea that heralded the end of all things, now I was rejoicing in waters so rich with life you could bottle it up and start a new planet. Red or Dead, Jordan offers it all.